My Silly Life

The weather was finally nice enough after work that I could sit out at our new deck table with Ares. Ares and Artemis used to go out on the balcony at my apartment all the time. I had taught them that it wasn’t okay to put their paws up on the railing (yup, cats *can* be taught) and they needed to stay away from the edge. (Plus, we were only on the second floor, so I was pretty sure they would be okay if they did happen to jump down.) It got to a point where I would just leave the balcony door open, and just let them come in an out as they pleased.

Since we moved to the house, though, I haven’t felt like I could bring the cats out, because we don’t really trust Duncan  though, I think it might be time to try and teach him like I did with Ares and Artemis. Today I decided to just let Ares out, since I was pretty sure I could trust him, though I do need to teach him a bit about what he can do and what he can’t (i.e. he can jump up on the built-in bench, but he can’t jump up on the flower box). He had a great time rolling around in the random detritus on the deck, exploring the sad planters filled with weeds, and rubbing his cheeks against the rake we have out there.

The picture with this post is Ares attacking the sad, weed-filled planter. What a little guy.

The ads I see while watching TV tell me that I don’t watch the most sophisticated shows. (Car title loans, “your job is your credit” car dealer, we-take-anyone insurance, if-you’ve-been-injured-then-sue law firms, payday loans)

Is it just me, or are car manufacturers making blinkers really hard to turn on? My car seems fine, but a least half the cars I encounter on my way to work seem to have trouble with it.

It looks like I’ll be back up to half-time soon – someone at work looked for money to pay me to work on E/PO, and found some! Yay!

Ares has been in violation of House Ordinance 0001-A, which states that “no kitten shall display his or her tumbly in the house except when cleaning his- or herself.” I’ve had to take drastic measures; namely, petting him to within an inch of his tiny self.

Why do all of the animated movies coming out in the next couple months look completely uninteresting? Does Disney or Pixar not take pride anymore to produce quality stories along with their quality animation?

The sudden car crash interrupting a random conversation is now officially cliche.

Dad just called to tell me that they had to put Allie down tonight. She was 18 and had been having kidney problems for months. Tonight, her kidneys started to shut down. Good bye pretty girl. I’m going to miss you. Thank you for being our girl for so long, and never forgetting your first “mama”, no matter how long I’ve been away from Mom and Dad’s house.

Artemis does not have a diaphragmatic hernia. In fact, she may not have any problems at all, other than a curved-in chest cavity (so smaller lung capacity) and perhaps some scar tissue. If she were diseased, then there ought to have been some change in the last 6 months, but her chest cavity looks exactly the same as it did in her previous x-rays. Plus, she’s gained a little weight since then (she certainly didn’t need to gain waight, but the vet pointed out that often weight loss is a symptom of disease).

So, it looks like we have a healthy kitty who just has some trouble breathing because her lungs are smaller than they should be. Yay! (for the healthy kitty, not the smaller lungs) We’ll keep an eye on her, as we always do, but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. < sigh of relief >

Artemis is at the vet again today for more tests in her ongoing saga. About a year ago, we noticed that she was breathing hard pretty much all of the time. Last June, the vet took some x-rays and saw what looked like a mass in her chest cavity. After some steroids, he concluded that he was confused  it could be cancer, and if so, she wouldn’t be around very long, it could be her anatomy (she has a divit in her chest, so there could be stuff going on that they don’t know about). The advice we got was to either take her to the expensive clinic for lots of tests (lots of stress on her), probably for a diagnosis of cancer or to wait for the cardiologist who periodically visits our clinic to have a look at her x-rays.

We decided to wait. Of course, we didn’t know that it was going to be 6 months before the cardiologist visited. He came to our clinic two weeks ago, and looked at her x-rays. He didn’t see cancer (plus, if was as bad as the original vet had thought, she should have been in bad shape by now). Instead, he thinks it might be a diaphragmatic hernia &#150 the stuff that the original vet said looked like a mass might be intestine coming into her chest cavity. He left us feeling very good about her chances of living a long life, if we find that it is a diaphragmatic hernia and get it repaired (major surgery, but he reassured us that the mortality rate is generally very good).

When our normal vet returned to the office (she was away at a conference last week), she had an associate call us to arrange a barium swallow for Artemis  this should show them if, indeed, she has intestine in her chest cavity. However, the vet that Andrew talked to also cautioned that if the liver is coming through to the chest cavity that there could be other complications to correcting the problem.

So, now she’s at the vet today for her barium swallow. I’m telecommuting, as usual for Mondays, and the house feels so empty. The boys are here, but they haven’t moved from where there were when I woke up this morning &#150 Artemis usually follows me around a bit, and demands attention while I’m at the computer. I miss her. Send her some good mojo today.

< Side Note > We had to take away the kids’ food for the night, since Artemis wasn’t supposed to eat after midnight for her test today. Ares was so hungry this morning, he was seeking out toy mice in the house to eat off their tails. What a silly guy.

Ever since he was a kitten, Ares has loved curling up under the Christmas tree (though, in his first couple years with me, it was a Christmas tumbleweed). The tree hasn’t even been in the house for more than a day, and the tree skirt has only been on for an hour, and he’s already settled. He’ll be in heaven when we add some wrapped boxes and Christmas stuffed toys. Silly guy.

I was startled to see Artemis in the laundry basket on the bed when I came back upstairs after lunch. I wasn’t startled because she was in the basket — that’s perfectly natural for her — it’s just that she had been in the other basket all morning.